Scan Vol 30 No 1 February 2011
39
In looking at these questions, ATL observes students developing:
• organisational skills
• information literacy
• collaborative skills
• problem solving
• reflection.
In attempting to develop the school approach to learning, models were investigated using the resource Teaching
models in education of the gifted (Maker & Schiever 2006, pp. 4--11). When discussing the curricula for gifted
students, Maker and Schiever suggest models of teaching and learning for gifted students should allow for:
While Maker and Schiever (2006) provides many models, it was felt that Kuhlthau's Model for the information search
process covered all the above providing a framework for intervention in the investigative process to support highly
able students. The affective domain of this model is especially important and is a powerful tool in allowing students
to move on.
The key to St Paul's Grammar School's experiences with GI (and not just with gifted and talented students) has been
the framing and reframing of questions as the result of immersion in the literature of selected fields of inquiry, along
with students being able to determine the final product or form of communication.
Along with this, the IB program required integration of what it calls the learner profile through all units of work.
The learner profile outlines the character of IB learners to be:
• inquirers
• knowledgeable
• thinkers
• communicators
• principled
• open-minded
• caring
• risk-takers
• balanced
• reflective.
I feel, as do the other teachers who worked with Years 7 and 8 on the 2008 Guided Inquiry Project, that the students
involved displayed all the above qualities. They just happen when working with GI. They do not have to be forced.
• abstractness
• complexity
• variety
• organisation
• study of people
• study of methods.
• higher levels of thinking
• open-endedness
• discovery
• evidence of reasoning
• freedom of choice
• group interaction
• pacing & variety.
• real problems
• real audiences
• transformation
• variety
• self-select format
• appropriate evaluation
• learning environment modifications
• learner centred
• student independence
• open environment
• acceptance -- understand student
ideas, timing of value judgements,
evaluation not judgement
• complexity
• varied groupings
• flexibility
• movement in & out of the classroom
environment.
Content modification through:
Process modifications through:
Product modification through: